Lumberling sat in silence, knees drawn close, elbows resting on them. The wind rustled the leaves above, but he barely registered the sound.
The world had shifted again.
What was once a brutal, grounded struggle for survival now revealed something deeper, vaster, divine. The revelation still clung to him like cold water on his skin.
Gods.
Real ones. Tangible. Terrifying.
Not symbols or metaphors, actual beings that bent the rules of the world.
'So gods like them truly exist in this world...'
The thought should've broken something in him. And maybe it had. It was terrifying to know there were entities walking these lands that made everything he'd faced feel like mere shadows. But another part of him, some stubborn, simmering ember deep inside, felt a different reaction entirely.
Excitement.
Because if such powers did exist… then so did the paths to reach them.
Different faiths. Different disciplines. Different powers.
Different prey.
